


Enigma

by Lobotomite



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F, kind of more pre-thasmin but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 16:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobotomite/pseuds/Lobotomite
Summary: The more she learns about The Doctor, the more Yaz realises how much more there is to learn. It would probably take spending her whole life with The Doctor to start scratching the surface.She can't think of anything she'd rather spend her life doing.





	Enigma

Yasmin's life has been spun upside down. Not just upside down; backwards and forwards, upside down and right-side up, sent spiraling through a head-spinning roller coaster of new experiences she'd never thought possible.

She's been to alien planets so many times that stepping out of the Tardis onto a brand-new planet is only surprising if her life ends up on the line - and even then, there are life threatening situations she's come to view as routine, where she doesn't even have to be told what her role is. She’s met so many alien species that she doesn't blink an eye at meeting creatures she would have questioned in a sci-fi movie. She's been through so many wild, confusing, exhilarating experiences that she's pretty sure that going back to her old normal life would bore her to death. And with everything she learns, the more it becomes clear just how little she knows about The Doctor. She's learning, of course. She's learning more about her every day. But the more she finds out, the more she realises just how much there is still left to learn, and she's not sure she's got a lifespan long enough to learn it all. 

The Doctor isn't like any person Yaz has ever met. Which is the point of The Doctor, really, isn't it - she's not like any person she's met because she's _not_  a person. She's something wholly different, an enigma with thousands of years of life experience wrapped up in a too big coat.   


The thing that's constantly catching her off guard, though, is how, despite being a time travelling alien, she's the most _human_  person-alien-timetraveller Yaz has ever been around. She probably shouldn't phrase it like that - she's traveled with and fought with and been saved by and just _known_  enough genuine, honest-to-god aliens that she's well aware by now that humanity doesn't hold a monopoly on the so-called human condition. Language grows slower than understanding, though, so for now, that's the word she uses in her head when she's turning the enigma that is The Doctor over in her mind.

Ryan and Graham are off somewhere. She's not sure _where_ , exactly, but she does know that it's not here right at this moment, so she takes the opportunity to strike up a conversation with The Doctor and hopefully get a little bit more insight into her brilliant, mad mind.

"Doctor," she says with a questioning lilt in her voice, and then pauses in wait of an answer. There's no point continuing her sentence right now - The Doctor is fiddling with the Tardis controls, head dipped now and goggles on as she concentrates, and when she's in this mood there's a 50-50 chance that she won't notice anything around her. She would never actively ignore any of them, but when she's focusing on something she can end up so lost in her own thoughts she just doesn't register anyone at all.

Today is one of the easy days, though, and she rocks upright immediately, pulling her goggles off her eyes in the same motion and smiling inquisitively at Yaz.

"Yaz! You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I was wondering if you had some time to talk? Only if you're not busy."

"I've always got time for my favourite person! Don't tell the others I said that, though, I've already told them both they're my favourite," she says with a cheeky grin that pulls a mirroring one onto Yaz's face. 

"I'm the one you're telling the truth to, of course."

"Of course," The Doctor agrees, eyes twinkling. "So, what's up?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about, well, what you are. About that... regeneration thing."

"Hmm. What about it? There's a lot to say, it really is quite fascinating stuff, quite normal to me of course and easy to take for granted, but the quantum mechanics of it all is so interesting once you get properly into it, very elegant, really, it's-"

"No, um, I don't think I'm that... advanced. I was wondering more about... I know that your _body_  changes, when you regenerate. But you talk about yourself like you're a different person than you were, sometimes? How does... how does that work?"

"Oh, it's very simple. They're me, and I was them, but the me that was them isn't the me that I am." She says it all with such easy confidence it takes Yaz a few seconds to realise she doesn't actually understand any of this any more than she had before. 

"So... all of the people you've known, and loved... You still love them just the same, now?"

"Of course!" The Doctor chirps, perking up as she always does at the mention of love and affection and loyalty (it never seems like there's any more "up" for her to perk, but she always manages it). "Everyone I've traveled with, everyone who's helped me - I remember all of them." She hesitates, then, her brow furrowing. "Well, I suppose I don't love them the _same_. I love them the same _amount,_ of course, and I remember them fondly, but I suppose not the _same_. I'm a different me than I was then, after all. How we interact, and relate to each other - it would be a bit different. Maybe too different, maybe not; it depends, really, doesn't it." Her eyes go far away for a moment, her face uncharacteristically somber. Yaz can't help but wonder who she's thinking about - and, shamefully, can't help but wonder how she compares.

She clears her throat, unable to resist taking the chance to find out, not knowing when she might have another relatively natural way to bring it up.

"I know that you've, uh, you've had relationships before. And they've been women. So... you're attracted to women, then? Or... you're straight? Would you be attracted to women now, or men, or...?" Her skin burns, and she coughs awkwardly, catching herself. "Gosh, sorry, that's- I don't mean to pry, I know it's none of my business." _Why should you even care, Yazmin_ , she scolds herself. _It's got nothing to do with you._  And if she feels a now familiar twist of disappointment in her gut at the truth in that, well, only she has to know.

"No, no, it's alright," The Doctor reassures her, smiling. "Questions are good, I love questions, love it when my fam asks the right ones - best way to learn things, questions, aren't they? Love answering them. Love asking them too, of course, always got more questions to ask, don't often get enough answers to them though - people tend to get annoyed if you ask too much, I find, but not me, not if they're asked for the right reasons. And I've never known our Yaz to ask questions for the wrong reasons." She beams at her with a pleased smile so bright Yaz completely forgets what they were talking about until The Doctor herself remembers. "Oh! That's the thing about questions, though, isn't it, you usually want an answer to them," she laughs with a sheepish smile. "Not always, though, sometimes they're rhetorical, can get quite mean spirited, actually- but this one wasn't, sorry, you probably do want an answer to this one. 

"The short of it is yes, I suppose; I was attracted to women, the past mes were, and so is this me, that's not changed. I'm not _just_  attracted to women, though, never have been - perfectly alright to be, of course, but not me, no, I've never been one to have much of a preference for that sort of thing. Women, men, everything in between and beyond and different and similar - I just like people. Not just humans, that would be a bit weird, me not being one and all, but, well. I've always found humans to be particularly special." She looks Yaz right in the eyes as she says that, smiling one of those rare smiles Yaz has come to consider hers despite herself. 

The Doctor smiling isn't rare in and of itself - it's rarer for her to _not_  be smiling, really. But they're usually as loud and boisterous as The Doctor herself, wide and eager grins lighting up her face. Not these smiles, though. These smiles are smaller, gentler, but no less expressive - they make Yaz's heart skip a beat, like all of The Doctor's considerable warmth is being beamed directly into her. She's never been able to work out exactly what they mean; she would call them calculating, and while it's true there seems to be an element of figuring Yaz out, that seems too harsh a word, too cynical to accurately describe the affection she feels in them. She thinks sometimes they must mean something similar to what Yaz herself feels for The Doctor. Fascination, a thirst to know more, to get closer, to really _know_  her. 

She's never been brave enough to bring these looks up to the others, and she's never sure if it's because she doesn't want them to think she's strange and oversensitive or if she's scared to find out that those looks aren't exclusive to her at all. 

In the end, it doesn't matter. Not really. She knows The Doctor cares about her, she knows she cares about The Doctor, and she knows Ryan and Graham are cared for and care just as much. The rest can work itself out. So she smiles, and nods, and files this information away for a different day, and asks where The Doctor is planning on taking them next.


End file.
